Parochialism as Method Pejorative, Partage, Pastoral

In the methodological ecumenicalism of its focus on objects and concepts, cultural analysis is particularly susceptible to a decolonial critique that emphasizes the importance of situated knowledge. However, I propose that it is precisely in the disavowed parochialism that links cultural analysis to Amsterdam with its conjoined histories of capitalism, colonialism, and liberalism, that its methodological ecumenicalism is at its most generative. As parochialism in various guises takes on a general conjunctural force, cultural analysis models a form of community that is predicated not on belonging, but in participation in difference, or parochialism as partage.